A huge thank-you to all the fabulous individuals who helped put together another successful Pumpkins in the Park at Fort Lots of Fun Park on Oct. 20. In its fifth year, Pumpkins in the Park is a wonderful event where family, friends, neighbors, local businesses and community personnel can come together to enjoy a morning of games, food, music, raffle prizes, costumes and cookie decorating.

It is a collaborative event that could have not taken place without the efforts of a number of individuals and sponsors, including Friends of the Parks Board, Hermosa Beach Moms, Hermosa Beach Community Resource Department, Parks and Recreation Department and City Council members. Sponsors include Chevron, Hair House, Hermosa Beach Playhouse, Starfish, Toy Jungle, Paciugo Gelato and Manhattan Beach Bread and Bagel. We are grateful for their support and appreciate all that they do for our community.

Hermosa Beach Friends of the Parks (FOP) is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to identifying, prioritizing and fundraising for park and recreation improvements throughout the city of Hermosa Beach. In addition, FOP promotes the use of Hermosa Beach parks for the community and promotes the parks as a valuable resource to the city’s residents and visitors. We are always looking for new members, fresh ideas and helping hands who don’t mind getting a little dirty! For more information, call 310-318-0280.

– KENNETH ROY BERGERON,

President, Friends of the Parks

Hermosa Beach

Get serious about recycling

A high school teacher of mine 20-plus years ago told me a story about the time he hosted an exchange student from India in the late 1970s. When asked what amazed him most about the United States, he remarked “the size of your trash cans.”

Let this be a wake-up call for our disposable society: If you can’t go more than a week or two without having overflowing trash, there is something wrong. Recycle trash products, redeem items for the CRV, or California Refund Value, charge you pay, have a compost box/pile (for those with yards). My household (two adults and an infant) usually has one, sometimes two, trash bags a week. The diapers are 99 percent biodegradable, so no bag necessary. We generate more recyclables than waste. What’s stopping you?

– BEN BURCH

Torrance

Don’t limit contributions

Once again the Torrance City Council is seeking to control by way of a power grab. Never before have I seen this behavior.

The Frank Scotto-appointed Ethics Committee was scheduled to present its findings to the Torrance City Council on Tuesday under item 12B. Many of the recommendations are agreeable with the exception of the principal recommendation. The heart of the proposed ordinance quietly disallows corporations, unions, employee groups and others from making contributions to City Council campaigns. Since when are the groups mentioned not part of the social and business structure of Torrance? Should they not be able to support the candidate of their choice?

Taking away their right to support candidates is un-American and it’s irresponsible to even consider it. Along with the citizenry, Torrance has been made a great city by prosperous business activity and their support, along with the pride and hard work of the city’s labor groups, including Torrance police and fire associations.

This ordinance has all the markings of a campaign payback issue being laundered by Scotto’s Ethics Committee, disallowing campaign contributions from those who didn’t support Scotto during the last mayor’s race. It’s called free speech and it comes in many ways, including campaign contributions, and this recommendation is trying to squash it. No wonder no other governmental body across this land has ever taken such a drastic step of limiting campaign contributions from those mentioned.

– LINDA DARNELL

Torrance

Story ignores biblical law

On Sunday Melissa Evans shamelessly wrote an article about two lesbians who claim to be ministers (“TV race is leap of faith for gay pair”). These two lesbian lovers are about to display their so-called “lifestyle” on television. These two women say they are Christians! I would like to know how in their minds they have formulated this silly notion!

Christianity involves an adherence to the Holy Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does Christianity approve of this “lifestyle.” In fact, the Bible strongly, clearly and unequivocally condemns homosexuality in the book of Romans 1:24-32.

No Biblically grounded Christian church would allow two lesbians to be ministers. This is why you continue seeing, reading and hearing about major Christian churches expelling homosexual pastors or ministers who proclaim their perversions publicly. While we all sin, we don’t publicly and shamelessly embrace it.

It would be informative to readers if Evans would get her facts straight regarding Christianity. Words mean things. Instead, she has written a very deceptive article which blasphemes Christianity.

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